The Mahatma and the Hare eBook

Now I have this power. Occasionally when I am
in deep sleep some part of me seems to leave my body
and to be transported quite outside the world.
It travels, as though I were already dead, to the Gates
that all who live must pass, and there takes its stand,
on the Great White Road, watching those who have been
called speed by continually. Those upon the earth
know nothing of that Road. Blinded by their pomps
and vanities, they cannot see, they will not see it
always growing towards the feet of every one of them.
But I see and know. Of course you who read will
say that this is but a dream of mine, and it may be.
Still, if so, it is a very wonderful dream, and except
for the change of the passing people, or rather of
those who have been people, always very much the same.

There, straight as the way of the Spirit and broad
as the breast of Death, is the Great White Road running
I know not whence, up to those Gates that gleam like
moonlight and are higher than the Alps. There
beyond the Gates the radiant Presences move mysteriously.
Thence at the appointed time the Voice cries and they
are opened with a sound like to that of deepest thunder,
or sometimes are burned away, while from the Glory
that lies beyond flow the sweet-faced welcomers to
greet those for whom they wait, bearing the cups from
which they give to drink. I do not know what
is in the cups, whether it be a draught of Lethe or
some baptismal water of new birth, or both; but always
the thirsting, world-worn soul appears to change,
and then as it were to be lost in the Presence that
gave the cup. At least they are lost to my sight.
I see them no more.

Why do I watch those Gates, in truth or in dream,
before my time? Oh! You can guess.
That perchance I may behold those for whom my heart
burns with a quenchless, eating fire. And once
I beheld—­not the mother but the child,
my child, changed indeed, mysterious, wonderful, gleaming
like a star, with eyes so deep that in their depths
my humanity seemed to swoon.

She came forward; she knew me; she smiled and laid
her finger on her lips. She shook her hair about
her and in it vanished as in a cloud. Yet as
she vanished a voice spoke in my heart, her voice,
and the words it said were—­

“Wait, our Beloved! Wait!”

Mark well. “Our Beloved,” not “My
Beloved.” So there are others by whom I
am beloved, or at least one other, and I know well
who that one must be.

*****

After this dream, perhaps I had better call it a dream,
I was ill for a long while, for the joy and the glory
of it overpowered me and brought me near to the death
I had always sought. But I recovered, for my hour
is not yet. Moreover, for a long while as we reckon
time, some years indeed, I obeyed the injunction and
sought the Great White Road no more. At length
the longing grew too strong for me and I returned thither,
but never again did the vision come. Its word
was spoken, its mission was fulfilled. Yet from
time to time I, a mortal, seem to stand upon the borders
of that immortal Road and watch the newly dead who
travel it towards the glorious Gates.